Lamp sockets for use in automotive vehicles are, of course, well-known in the art. The more recent sockets have a molded plastic body, some one-piece, some two-piece. Various configurations of contact terminals have been designed to provide a grounding terminal and bulb engaging contacts. They are generally designed for ready assembly of the contacts into the plastic body.
A patent which shows an exemplary socket with a plastic bulb receiving insert is U.S. Pat No. 3,909,096 to Brzozowski issued Sept. 30, 1975. In this patent, the socket insert acts to latch the contacts in place responsive to the installation of the locking insert. The contacts when installed have terminals extending in a ring within the outer socket annulus to enable connection of power and grounding leads to the socket.
An example of a one-piece socket may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,718,892 issued Feb. 27, 1973 to J. Burgess et al. This patent shows a one-piece plastic socket body with a two-piece main bulb contact. The contacts are inserted from the terminal end through slots in the base beneath the bulb area for engagement with a bulb base.
In both of these patents, the contacts are inserted through the bottom of the socket to extend into the bulb cavity. Using these approaches, the bulb may tend to loosen the mounting of the terminals within the socket since the direction of bulb pressure is toward ejection of the terminals from the bulb assembly.